Stitches and Stupidity

Have you ever had one of those parenting moments where you wish you had the power to just reverse time and do a better job!?! Where you know that if the circumstances would've been just different enough you may of trusted that internal voice that warned against your initial decision??

Yeah, tonight was one of those for me and unfortunately, it took a sad toll on my eldest.

Let's set the scenario:

I taught until 7:45pm.

Wednesdays are my current workout nights, which one of my best-friends (and neighbor) has recently been doing with me--so at around 8pm, Kristy (said friend & neighbor) texted me about whether or not we were 'still going.'

I responded 'yes', changed into my workout clothes, packed up the boys and headed to my husband's clinic--where he has a gym set-up.

We did our full workout and headed home around 9:30pm.

We put boys in the bath around 10pm (late night for us means late night for them, unfortunately.)

As you have read so far...it was late, we were all tired and COMPLETELY off the normal schedule...and as you may have assumed, we were all starving!

In an attempt to curb the whines and sheer torture of the whole situation, I gave the boys a little, mini pyrex bowl of goldfish crackers to munch on while they took their bath, while Aaron and I threw together a quick, planned chicken recipe.

Shortly after starting on the chicken, Aaron decided that he needed to run to the store for an ingredient that, in hind-sight, we really could've and should've just used what we already had, in it's place.

While Aaron was gone, I was busy cooking in the kitchen, when suddenly, horrible screams came from the bathroom.

I dropped everything and went running in to find Lincy, on the far side of the tub with a scared expression on his face, just staring at Gray. I look at Gray and realized that I could see the tissue on his left leg! Within seconds, I grabbed his leg, applied pressure, scooped him up out of the bath and started screaming for Aaron (who had thankfully JUST walked in the door), for help. After getting a quick glance at it, Aaron confirmed we had to take him to the emergency room. 

OY.

The whole way there I couldn't help but think about the if-only's.......what in the sam-hill was I THINKING giving them a glass bowl, albeit small, for their snack! How easy would it of been for me to put that same snack into one of their little plastic bowls and have completely avoided this whole situation!

True, I didn't know that my sons would finish their snack and use it for their little bath animals 'house' on the edge of the bathtub. True, I didn't think that a thick bowl like that would ever break against our tub. In sad actuality, my biggest 'concern' was that they'd spill their crackers into the tub and the 'worst' I'd be dealing with were squeals and complaints that 'soggy fishies' were 'swimming' in the tub with them. 

(Yes, it's happened before.) ;P 

Now, I only wish that would've been the case.

At least soggy fishies wouldn't of left a 2-inch scar on my beautiful little boy's perfect little leg.

OY. Again.

Perhaps the most excruciating part of our night though was watching my little man's face as I sat at the side of the bed, 'hugging' him and saying ANYTHING I could to keep his mind (and mine) off the fact that his leg was being stitched up. Staring at the sprinkler on the ceiling of the hospital room...watching for the blinking light on it to blink. Lord knows, that 'trick' only worked for so long.

How brave he was, though. What an amazing job he did, initially trying to make himself laugh---yes, I said LAUGH---and even once the big elephant tears appeared, trying sooooo hard to breathe with me and talk to me about happier things. 

Lord knows, I did enough crying OUT of his presence for the both of us.

What a stupid lesson and what a STUPID reason for stitches!

Yes I will forgive myself and yes, I know it could've been worse...

but I will still never forget having to watch those beautiful little eyes wince and well-up as I sat there with him.

I NEVER want to be the cause of that for him, again.

I know there will be other boo-boo's, I know there will be other scars...

I just pray that God protects him and keeps those other things from being any worse than this was.

Of course, I suppose we could look at it as his nurse so adorably put it...

CHICKS DIG SCARS. 

And no, he has yet to let me forget that 'advice' and I'm sure he never will. lol. ;)

Pirate-Appropriate Circumstances...

So yesterday morning, during breakfast, Grayson asked me if he and Lincoln could watch an episode of something on Netflix while they ate their morning cereal. Being that I had no reason to say no and I have veeeery fond memories of morning cartoons paired with cold-cereal, I told him 'sure!'
After flipping through the kids menu, he and Lincoln agreed on watching an episode of Backyardigans, a show that although they both enjoy, they have not watched a whole lot.
Gray is just starting to read/sound out longer words and after successfully sounding out the word 'pirate' on one episode description, he insisted that he watch that one.
After selecting it and getting their little kid's table moved to the living room where they could see the tv (not brave enough to try bowls of milk & substance without a flat-surface with them, yet) ;P, I went back to the kitchen and began working on my house-chores. Though I was tuned in 'enough' to put out any fires that could start between them, or meet any 'dire need' requests, I was working on 'mom-things'...hence not paying a hole lot of attention to the show, itself.

A handful of minutes after the boys had finished their cereal and the little 20-minute Backyardigans episode had ended, Gray started humming a tune I recognized....the tune of 'What do you do with a Drunken Sailor'...and I asked him, 'Whatcha singing, buddy?' He proudly broke out into song (thank goodness with different lyrics, ha!) and said that the Backyardigans had sung it.

Grayson had school that morning, so the rest of our late-morning consisted of the usual routine of getting ready to go. On the way to school, Grayson started singing the song again--all lyrics and verses--(that kid floors me!) and then promptly stopped to ask me, excitedly, 'Mom! Do you think that Mrs. Schreiner, (his adorable teacher), would like it if I sang that song to her?'
I proceeded to explain to him that she would probably love to hear it but that he'd have to do it at the right time and used the word 'circumstances.'
There was a quiet pause from the backseat... 'Gray? Do did you hear me, honey? He thought for a minute more.... 'Gray??' He then responded, 'What did you say?' Realizing he probably didn't know the meaning of that word, I elaborated. I told him that circumstances had to do with the scenario--who's around, what his teacher is doing, etc. A big 'OOOOOOOOOH' came from the backseat and nothing more was said.
10-minutes or so later, we were outside where Grayson's class was lining up. I noticed he was patiently standing by Mrs. Schreiner. As she finished addressing Grayson's classmates, she looked down at Grayson and asked him if he could get in line with the other kids. 'So I guess this is not the right Cir-kum-stasses for me to sing you my pirate song?' *tripping all over the word. With a puzzled look followed by a chuckling smile 'Oh, Grayson...I'd love to here your song! Maybe you could sing for all of us as we walk to our classroom?' A beaming expression suddenly filled my young son's face 'Okay,' he exclaimed! Meantime, another teacher whom we consider to be Gray's second teacher--since she was his teacher during this past summer 'camp' experience, looks at me and says 'What in the world do you guys do at home?! Seriously...you're just killin' me here!' I just smiled & explained the 'circumstances', ha.

I soooo wish I'd of had a working cell phone/video-camera with me. Talk about melt the mama's heart to watch as his class marched their way across the playground in rehearsed fashion whilst my little man proudly sang the pants of his newly-learned pirate-song in the midst of the group--verses, choruses--the whole shebang!
Right before they reached his classroom door, he finished and Mrs Schreiner stopped the group. 'Class, I think we should give Grayson a big round of applause for his beautiful singing!'
Another tomato-red blush washed over Gray's face as his classmates and teacher applauded him and this proud mama thought about what a cool connotation the word 'circumstances' will forever have for her, from this day, forward.

Pins and Needles

Before you read this, I will warn you...this particular entry is 'invoooooooolved', so if you're reading this to procrastinate away that 'thing' that you wanted to force patience onto for just a second more, make sure it's not going to be too harmful for that second to total up to minutes, ha! :P

Whether or not you noticed the title of this entry (*and now that you have),
pins and needle were my 'theme' today...
err, for that matter, this whole week, as I've been preparing for a semi-annual children's consignment sale that I participate in twice a year.
As a side-note, (told you this was involved), if you live anywhere near Eugene OR, you really should check it out--TONS of gently-used baby-clothes/gear/toys, you name it, for a fraction of the retail cost--and it helps to support a sweet little children's consignment shop in Eugene. ;)
Email or leave me a note if you want the details.

K. I'm back now.

So, related to sale-preparations...pins have been haunting me, all week.
I've been having actual dreams of pinning tags to clothing articles and for that matter,
sharing this blog with you is actually causing me physical pains due to the pressure of the computer keys against my multiple fingertip stab-wounds. ;P

Preparing for this sale has also meant digging through my large quantities of 'stuff', inside rubber-maids, inside our garage.

Heuh heuh heuh....the garage. *shutters*
Eebie-jeebies just broke out ALL over my body from thinking about the garage, or really as we should be calling it, the 'rat's nest.' :P
How about you...do you have a garage scenario like ours???
Yeah, mine is a long-term project...meaning I'm in phases that will lead up to the eventual OVERHAUL of that crazy place. And yes, I will blog about it if you'd like--or even if you don't, ha.

Anyway.
Off topic.
Again.

As I was saying...preparations for this sale were, to say the least, time-consuming. Then, with all related thought processes and time-constraints weighing heavily over me, along with the hour distance that for some reason, in this scenario & need for punctuality, feels like a 10-HR distance...
I was stressed.
You could say I was on PINS AND NEEDLES.

Yeah. Like that? ;)
I do way over flatter myself. I know. I'm working on it. :P

Leaving the house today was a mad-rush, I'm not gonna lie. *And I wouldn't get away with it anyway cause there were witnesses.* Ashley. ;)

After Ashley helped me cram in my seven rubber-maids and however many other miscellaneous baby-gear items that were kissing my car-windows the whole trip up...I was out of here!
A quick grab of the purse, a quick re-entry of the house for the keys that were not inside said purse....... THEN, I was off, with just enough time for the drive.

Gas gauge? Just enough to get to Eugene. Whew! :)

For my fingertips sake as well as your brains power-guage, we'll skip ahead.

*Fast forward

Drive.
Sing praises. *Car radio's not working at the moment.
Still driving.
Still singing.
Arrive at Camp Harlow.
Greetings/cordialities.
Unload car.
Drive to mom & dad Z's.
Greetings/quick cordialities with mom & dad Z.
Pick up last 3 rubber-maids *left in their garage for this purpose.
Drive back to Camp Harlow.
Drop off last items.
Cordialities/ 'Safe travels home,' says Jennie--the sweet lady in charge of the sale. :)
Drive.
Hear/Feel stomach rumble *Haven't eaten since 2pm and it's now 8pm. Eeek!
Stop for quick 'tide me over' bite to eat at Taco Bell.

*Play button.

Ok, so it goes a little something like this:
You remember when I said how quickly I left the house, grabbed my purse, etc?
Yeah.

So here I am, at the drive-up window. Ordered a burrito and a med. iced tea.
We've been really trying to eat only healthy stuff lately---no eating out, no junk, etc.
Needless to say, my order was just to please the belly for just long enough till I was home.

'$3.73 please.'
I open my purse.......wait what? Where's my wallet???
Oh my.
Like a scene-flash on a movie, I remember.
It's in the backpack we took to the Duck's game. At Home.
I blush, explain and pull away, empty-bellied but on a mission to just GET HOME.
Initial response? 'Thank you, Lord...I didn't need that junk anyway!'

Content with the idea of a short 'fast', I begin singing again (remember, no radio?!) and pull onto the freeway. Merging onto I-5 I glance down.

Yeah. You're smart...you remember that little moment of foreshadowing back at the top of this entry...
about the gas gauge.
Ha! The GAS. GUAGE. (It's like watching an old Murder-She-Wrote Re-run, isn't it?!) ;)

Back come those pins and needles.

THAT needle was pointing toward the all hateful little gas-pump icon. Grrrrrrrrrr!!!
Now what.
No wallet. No checkbook. *yes, I'd already noticed that when sitting in the drive-thru.
No phone--oh yeah, did I mention *for those of you who have yet to experience the immense irritation of not being able to reach me cause my phone is LAME* Yeah, my phone doesn't hold a charge or stay on, or do anything predictable, for that matter. >:-P

Still not gonna panic, though.

I drive to the nearest exit with a gas-station, which happens to be the Glenwood exit, pull off, park in the gas-station parking lot and proceed to tear my car apart searching for cash, change...anything that will buy me gas!

Fast forward 15 very panicked minutes and I finally stop searching, close all my doors, sit in the driver's seat and just before I let myself start crying, I start praying.

'Lord...PLEEEEEEASE, I know I can borrow a phone...I know I can call mom & dad Z., I know I have options.........but pleeeeease help me. Send something...someone.......make this an easy fix.
I'm tired. I'm hungry. My family's waiting. I WANT TO GO HOME.

I get out of my car, walk into the gas-station market, not really having a 'plan'...walk up to the counter and proceed to explain my 'sob-story' to the cashier.
It's not even a full two sentences completed before a small, sweet but funny little lady butts into the conversation.

'WAIT! Do you need money? Are you out of gas? CAN I HELP YOU???'

Is she for real? I don't know about you all, but it's been a loooong time since I've seen signs of God's Love showing and working through complete strangers, for my benefit?!

We were seriously just having a conversation with some family-members about how, as times get graver and darker, people all around us, more and more, are thriving for THEMSELVES.
It's like you know if everyone were starving to death, they'd stoop so low as to make
YOU part of their menu.

Sick, I know. I'm done with the dark stuff. But it's true.

Back to Kristen. *That's her name.

Kristen proceeds to tell me how she just got majorly ripped by a rental company today and she literally feels like God may be hounding the message into her...between rental-thing and me...that money's not important and in fact, it's not even ours! :)

*Fast forward

Me crying.
Her crying.
Embracing of strangers.
Exchange of contact info *mainly so I can pay her back her 20 bucks!
Purchase of ice cream, made by her, cause she was gonna go home & celebrate this interaction. ;)
Exchange of 20 bucks, just enough to get me home...
Another embrace.

*Play button.
Get back in car and pull up to the gas-pump.
Pay the station attend.
Watch as the needle gets just far enough away from that evil little gas-pump light for me to
make it home.


Do I think Kristen & I were placed in that same place at that same time, for a reason? Absolutely.
Did I regain a little deeper hope in humanity---rather that humanity will turn to the right Power-source and in turn, put one another into a more faith-filled priority-list? Without a doubt.
Did I give Him praise and thanks for Kristen and His Faithfulness to me?
THE WHOLE WAY HOME!

Hey, I even wrote a song about it on the way home, ha! Not kidding.

...and no, I'm not calling it Pins and Needles. What a silly question. :P

Laugh at Life's 'Poop'

Largely due in part  to the fact that I am now a mother of two---which, sorry ladies, I consider ACTUAL motherhood since I'm now entirely convinced that mothers of just one have only licked the top of that salt-block---I find that my most inspirational and highly irrational ideas hit me during that 5-minutes-a-day I get entirely to myself (sometimes 10, if I stay up until the un-godly hours of the night, (see my first blog), OR when I'm in the shower--that is, when I purposely take an extended period of time out to take one. 

Yes…you read it right…the. shower. 

Steam spraying up from my 'scalding-hot spray' (as the hubs claims), ideas like 'I want to write an orchestral work' OR 'I'm going to write a book' come across my thoughts. :P I know, right?!

Maybe the hubby's right…maybe that water scalding my BRAIN…or maybe I've misplaced my marbles somewhere between 'Mommy, Lincy's stinky' or 'Honey, where'd that (fill-in-the-blank) go,' or 'Ew, Dooger pooped on the porch.' 

Hmmm…anyone else notice how more than one poop-scenario came up in my short list of examples?

It appears I've answered my own question. I have lost my marbles. But why, you say? 

Poop, of course. 

My mother's crazy family claims that 'Poop is funny' but I think I'll instead claim that 'Poop is insanity.' Am I laughing when I'm cleaning the 500th blow-out of my short-lived motherhood? Not exactly. Am I laughing when I'm cleaning the diarrhea off the front of my pants cause my 3 year old had 'to go' in the middle of a Taco Bell drive-thru at the beginning of an hour-long road-trip, yet neglected to tell his panicky, scrambling mother that he'd 'already gone' before she braced him 'into position' against her thighs? Not so much.

I must be missing something.

I suppose my one important crisis-saver in the midst of my 'poop-insanity'---as I'm now calling my 'condition' is that my mom's family IS right--well, mostly. 

Poop's not necessarily funny, but in order to not just survive but thrive in this period of life, one must convince oneself that it IS funny. 

Laughing...at both scenario and self, no matter how gag-worthy the poop!

So.........

in summary of this rambling,

When life hands you poop...........

JUST LAUGH.

First Post Ever...at a Late-Night Hour!

Yep.


Here I am, now at 1:50am----yes, it took me THAT long to figure out my design-details
for this page, yet I am still not happy with what it's doing to text/picture size, etc. :P


Oh. Well.


Since I said 'Nighty-Night' on my facebook page, nearly an hour ago, and that I was headed to 
bed (and here I still am), I thought, what more appropriate 'subject area' than to hit on us mom's
and our midnight-hour tendencies.


I often think back on how late I used to stay up as a teenager and the little to no affect 
it had on me. Now, being nearly 32 and a top-speed-ahead mother of two, I've come full circle. 


When Aaron and I first married and I was working to support us, 11pm felt like 2 or 3 am...
hence, 10pm was about my going average for operation hit-head-to-pillow.
Then, Grayson came along, and though he we 'trained' him to be a good sleeper, he was a
new addition of time (well spent), but SPENT, nonetheless. 
Fast-forward 2 1/2 years and Lincoln enters our lives bringing with him the feeling of having 
not one more but FOUR more kids around.
Needless to say, here I am, burning the midnight-oils in order to capture a smidgen of uninterrupted 
'ponder-time' and using a portion of it to enter this first blog.


All you mother's out there know what I'm talking about. 


Their in bed. 
Quick, get my shower so I don't scare my husband away the next time the option of physical-affection
comes into play!
Quick, research that important *insert important future-belonging here* so I know which one we should be
looking for!
Quick, sneak some of those Peanut Butter M&M's I successfully hid away from the hubs and kids. 
*No, Aaron, I don't do that. It's just an example. No, Really. It Is. *munch.....*crunch*
What was I saying, again?


Oh yeah. I suppose you could say the motherhood promenade means becoming a bit of an insomniac.
Not that you CAN'T sleep *though maybe some of you can't.* But that you 'can't' go just yet cause frankly,
some of the most productive couple-hour spurts I have are when all but yours truly are shut down and in bed.


What about you? Do you find yourself periodically staying up a couple hours past your brood to bake that 
banana-bread that you just couldn't get around to that afternoon cause Dr. Suess came a calling and that will
always be more important? 


Do Share!!!